The brazing or thermal treatment of one or more objects becomes complicated when those objects are small or are brazed or thermally treated by conventional methods. In industrial applications, brazing or thermal treatment that requires heating within a furnace is excessively time consuming and thus drives up the cost of processing. Small diameter tubes and parts with complex shapes are difficult to braze or thermally treat in-situ since it is difficult to heat small target areas with any precision using current induction heating or furnace heating methods. The heat as applied through these methods cannot be precisely localized and thus will invariably affect surrounding components. Attempts at using direct heating from lasers or electron beams are inefficient or detrimental in that they heat from one direction only, leading to overheating one side of a joint to be brazed while under-heating the opposite side.
The process variables that must be considered and optimized when resolving these problems include: recognizing the inherent geometry of the target objects, taking into account the target materials involved, accounting for the surrounding physical environment in which the objects reside, selecting an appropriate heat energy source, and designing an apparatus to facilitate an efficient path to distribute the energy on the target objects.
Therefore, there is a long felt need for a method of brazing or heat treating metal or ceramic components that can optimize all of the integrated relational aspects involved when dealing with small components or those that are located in hard to reach areas. Industrial applications that would benefit from a solution to these problems include, but are not limited to, field retrofit of small tubing and tubulation hardware within commercial jet turbine engines, electronic component manufacturing, and medical equipment using capillary tubing.
The method of the present invention overcomes the aforementioned obstacles through use of a computerized method to account for all the integrated relational aspects involved with in-situ brazing or heat treatment of target components. Through an iterative procedure, either internal to the computer program or external by re-running the simulation with changed variables, an optimized solution can be reached that allows for the construction of a unique apparatus for the most efficient brazing or heat treatment operation for a given task.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.